The hamster vector?

The hamsters from the pet store, not the only rodents the government has and plans to euthanize, were imported from the Netherlands.

First they came for the hamsters
and I did not speak out – because
I was not a hamster…

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I can see quarantining the hamsters until they are recovered. But a hamster that recovered from Covid is probably healthier than one that never got Covid in the first place. I know hamsters don’t have a terribly long lifespan to begin with, but an extra 10 days is probably not going to reduce their value by THAT much…

But your mother, she was a hamster.

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And your father smelt of elderberries!

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Are they filigree Siberian hamsters?

“recovered” from what? The article didn’t indicate that any hamsters (or rabbits or guinea pigs or chinchillas, all of which were “euthanized regardless of test result”) were actually sick from the virus - just that they tested positive for it. Looks like they were tested because 2 humans associated with the pet store tested positive.

So you think – reasonably, imo – that hamsters who have “recovered from Covid” should be able to live on without the government needlessly interfering in their lives? Cool; now do kids.

long covid is a huge deal in the hamster community i bet.

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It’s hard to tell when rodents are sick. They don’t want to show weakness in front of potential predators, like you.

We had some mice who caught Sendai virus when i worked in a lab. I forget how we knew they had Sendai, probably someone tested some of the rodents. We waited for them to recover (or die) before using them in experiments. We did that by waiting long enough that they would be better, because it was hard to tell if they “felt sick”. Only one died, but i bet some of the others were sick.

I’ll add to what Lucy said, that even if the hamsters were truly asymptomatic, having had enough in their systems to test positive probably confers some degree of immunity.